National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Study Finds Chronic Alcohol Use Shifts Brain's Control of Behavior 8/23/2013 6:45:54 AM

Chronic alcohol exposure leads to brain adaptations that shift behavior control away from an area of the brain involved in complex decision-making and toward a region associated with habit formation, according to a new study conducted in mice by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. he finding provides a biological mechanism that helps to explain compulsive alcohol use and the progression to alcohol dependence.